The Taxing Conundrum of Too Big to Fail

Fixing the risks around Wall Street's too-big-to-fail problem tends to run into one stubborn hurdle: Risk is where the biggest opportunities for returns often lie.

The latest proposal to deal with it comes from House Ways and Means Chairman Rep. Dave Camp (R., Mich.), who recently advocated a new tax on the assets of America's biggest banks. By penalizing scale, this would in theory encourage banks to shrink, thereby making the risks...